Light+Building Artist Spotlight: Ken McClymont

March 2018 - by Soraa

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Tell us about where your internal inspiration comes from? How does it influence the work you do? And how do you want others to view and experience your work?

My work is influenced by just about everything I experience on a day to day basis, added to which, I include what I already know artistically. Plus, simultaneously, I have a conversation with the piece I'm working on. Certain elements of the journey between myself and the work can take many different forms, where I want to go with the piece may not be where the painting tells me to go. All manner of things through the days and years have influenced me; However, I personally think my purpose or quest is to create an International comprehensible voiceless language that alters people's perspectives. I derive great pleasure and satisfaction when viewers who appreciate my work tell me that they don't usually like abstract painting. For me, I've changed how they look and see art. The fact that everyone perceives events, colors and sounds differently is a constant inspiration.

Tell us about light and color and how that plays into your work and your creative process.

Colors are incredibly important to me. When I trained figuratively, I became very aware of the subtleties of color especially in life painting or portraits, a practice that I have retained in my work. The important way that light transforms a piece either from within or externally can make an enormous difference to the way a work is seen and perceived. For me, the colors, paint and the juxtapositions, harmonies and questions they raise are my main priority and of course the light and depth, from within and externally, add an extra dimension to the conundrum of making a successful work.

As an artist, tell us about what other art forms and artists have inspired your work?

As a young impressionable child I was fortunate enough to be taken to Amsterdam with my grandmother and experienced The Night Watch by Rembrandt. I clearly remember looking at the spear in the foreground which led me in to look at the rest of the painting. That made a huge difference, although it took a few years for it to make perfect sense. There are too many art forms I enjoy to write down here. I think my love of different music should be apparent from my work. Inspiration from other painter artists come in different forms. Particularly I love, Rembrandt, Turner, Canaletto, The Scottish Colourists (especially Peploe and Melville) Matisse, Pollock, Rothko, and more recently Albert Irvin, John Hoyland and Richard Smith.

How has your art evolved or changed over the years?

I am always pleasantly surprised at how little my work has evolved or changed throughout the years. I meet people who bought from me just after I graduated and they proudly show me a photograph of my old work, which still looks like something I could and would produce. If anything, I think my technique has evolved through experimentation and scale. Although, I do produce works that are 10cms x 10cms. Personally, the challenge of making something that initially questions and challenges me is of paramount importance. Only when both, it and I, mutually agreed to stop does it make its way to hopefully be displayed.